The meeting on the Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phage is a central forum for the presentation of new results in the general area of prokaryotic molecular biology and genetics. Some 300 participants, representing more than 200 laboratories (both in the United States and abroad) attend the vast majority present either short talks or posters. It is an important venue for the cross fertilization of the discipline; it is also, for many graduate students and postdoctoral fellow, the first large meeting at which they have an opportunity to speak. The abstracts cover a wide range and include fundamental work on transcription recombination, DNA synthesis translation, pathogenesis, and other areas. Although the specific subjects are wide ranging, the commonality of approaches means that new conceptual and technical advances rapidly become disseminated through the attending laboratories. The 1995 meeting will be special in that it will include a session dealing with the E. coli genome project. This will be the perfect venue for a summary report of the genome sequencing projects and analyses of how the sequence information can be used in genome structure/function studies. More importantly, this meeting will provide an ideal opportunity to stimulate the use of this information by the relevant scientific community. The meeting will also include a session in which some of the scientist who founded the field of molecular biology will discuss the intellectual roots of the field in the context of the then available technology.